TOTALLY HAUNTED

The Mid Wales Hospital, originally the Brecon and Radnor Joint Counties Lunatic Asylum was a psychiatric hospital in Talgarth, Wales 

It was opened on March 18, 1903 and like other asylums of that time it was designed to be self-sufficient, and had its own private water, electricity, heating and sewerage systems. They also produced food for the hospital from the hospital farm. 

There was a large recreation and dining hall, kitchens and workshops where the patients were encouraged to spend their time. There was even a tailor, bakery, shoe-maker and printing shops as well as 8 acres of market gardens. 

In July 1940 the hospital was given over to military use and most of the patients were transferred to other Welsh mental hospitals until it was returned to civilian use in 1947. 

In 1948 the hospital became part of the National Health Service which brought a number of innovations, including art and occupational therapy and the integration of the sexes, who had previously occupied opposite sides of the hospital.  

The hospital has been used for many different things including a College of Nursing and Midwifery and the Powys Drugs & Alcohol Council for substance misuse. 

With the introduction of Care in the Community and changing attitudes towards mental healthcare, the hospital finally closed in 1999. 

The site was sold to the former Chief Medical Officer for just £227,000 who redeveloped the site as a business park. However, due to the site's isolated location the venture failed and only one or two businesses remained. 

Throughout the site there are signs that demolition work had started. And many of the original slates (believed to be worth in excess of £1 million) have been stripped from the roofs.

It has now been left to rot away and many of its original features have either been stolen or have just crumbled away. 

We investigated Talgarth Asylum in May 2018

Investigating was myself, Lorraine along with Jack and Cameron 

It was a warm calm night and ideal for an investigation 

The site is in such a bad state of dereliction, I think it has to be one of the worst we have investigated. We had tried several times to investigate the site but failed to get in but this night we were lucky. 

Navigating our way around the grounds in the dark was hard and full of hazards. The grass was waist height and there were many ditches and mounds which we luckily managed to avoid, just. Something we found which was quite disconcerting was a power junction box which was humming quite loudly. This meant to us that there was still power on somewhere in the hospital, which was a bit of a worry. 

I had seen photos of the Ballroom and thought it would be a great place to start the investigation, however finding it wasn’t going to be that easy.  

We made our way through a couple of the buildings on the hunt for the ballroom and we could see the full extent of damage caused from years of neglect, and the odd mindless vandal.  

In one place the upstairs floors had fallen through and you could see the windows and door from the room above. 

We made our way back outside to the far side of the site and we could see the massive hall right in front of us. We eventually found a way in and that was more by luck than judgement. We had found ourselves in what we thought was a basement until we climbed up through a hole and found ourselves on the stage looking out over the ballroom.  

It seemed quite bizarre how half of the hall seemed in a fair condition, where the other side was totally ruined. It was obviously due to the condition of the roof. We had noticed while walking around the outside of the site during the day that a fair few of the roofs had been stripped of their tiles.  

Now we were in the hall we could start the investigation.  

Everything seemed quiet for some time with no activity and the place felt peaceful and calm. Then things started to happen.  

We started to hear footsteps coming from all around the hall, not being able to pin point where they were coming from. Maybe it was the residual sounds of the long-forgotten patients as they danced around the ballroom. We also heard a few knocks coming from the far end of the hall but our cameras were struggling to pick up sound or picture from that far away.   

There was a chair on the stage where we were stood and I asked if anybody would like to come and sit in the chair, then something was thrown. By this point the atmosphere seemed to have changed a bit and it wasn’t so peaceful anymore.  

Almost straight after the first thing was thrown something else was thrown but from a different area and it was closer. After that it seemed to go quiet again, but not for long.  

I heard what I thought was a growl but to be sure I asked Cameron who was stood beside me if it was his stomach to which he replied “No” but he and Jack had both heard it too. Then straight away I heard it again behind me so I turned to film that area and then something was thrown right by me. 

We had been in the hall for a few hours and nothing much was happening so we decided we would move on and try and get to the admin block and find the room where the photo of the face was taken (picture above). We thought it would be easy to find as it is the main building you see from the road going through the site, but it was not that easy in the dark. We went through a few more buildings trying to find it but with no luck. We eventually gave up and decided to call it a night.  

It had been a good night but wish we could have found a way into the admin block, maybe next time.